


we had a moment, we had a summertime

by nebulastucky



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Bonding, Canon Compliant, Dramatic Irony, First Kiss, M/M, Mistaken Identity, The Jasmine Dragon (Avatar), Time Skips, Title from a Carly Rae Jepsen Song, Very Bad Flirting, barely, detective sokka on the case, flower symbolism but it's tea and it's all zuko, tea shop antics, why isnt that its own tag? where is the appreciation for traditional literary devices, zuko is the tea the tea is zuko they are one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulastucky/pseuds/nebulastucky
Summary: Sokka shrugs. “What’s the worst that could happen?”“You get captured and killed by the Fire Nation,” Toph provides.“They won’t execute me in a tea shop,” Sokka says around a sudden lump in his throat. “That’d be bad for business.”or: the one where sokka falls for a tea shop and a boy with too much charm for his own good.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 207
Kudos: 2655





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> quick thank you to my loves carla, ella, and ao3 user theatrythms for letting me talk about this fic for 2 days straight while i tried to get it out of my brain!! very wonderful ladies i adore u
> 
> title from carly rae jepsen's "julien"

Sokka has never seen his sister out of breath like this in her life. And that includes every single time she has screamed herself hoarse trying to talk sense into him after doing something stupid.

Katara stands in the doorway, taking massive gulps of air. The doors to their pristine Ba Sing Se home are slammed flat against the walls; Sokka knows enough about how angles work to be sure his sister has destroyed the hinges completely. 

“What the hell, Katara?” Sokka says. He reaches for something to use as a weapon and comes up empty. “Who’s chasing you?”

“What?” Katara pants. “No one’s chasing me.”

“So you were just running? On purpose?”

Her breathing mostly back under control, Katara gives him a look. “Yeah, I guess. Well, I mean - I had a  _ reason. _ I just wasn’t being chased.”

Aang materialises beside her, glass of water in hand for her like it’s the cure for pentapox. “Why were you running?”

“I heard a rumour.”

Tense anticipation floods out of Sokka. No one ever had to evacuate the first mostly-safe place they’ve been in months over a rumour, right?

“A rumour,” Sokka says. “What  _ rumour  _ could possibly justify you running all the way home from - wherever you were. I’ll be honest, I don’t know where you were. I didn’t pay attention when you left.”

Katara gives him another look, this time with far more frost and pain implied.

“Sokka,” Toph says, “stop talking.”

“I just -”

“Some of us want to find out what the rumour was  _ before _ Sozin’s comet arrives. Stop talking.”

Katara takes a final deep breath, but Sokka suspects this one has little to do with her running. He stops talking.

“I was in the Shopping District looking for something for dinner and I overheard a couple of students from the University talking about - about Firebenders.”

“Plenty of people talk about Firebenders,” Sokka says. “We talk about Firebenders all the time. Usually they’re trying to kill us, but -”

“Firebenders in Ba Sing Se, Sokka,” Katara insists. “They were talking about this fight they saw in the Lower Ring - some guy accused a waiter at a tea shop there of being Fire Nation, and it got physical. One of them said the waiter chased him into the street with flaming swords.”

“I don’t know if I believe that,” Aang says. “I think we would’ve heard about a guy with a flaming sword.”

“Anyone from the Fire Nation who made it this far into the Earth Kingdom isn’t going to slip up and expose themselves over one rude customer,” Sokka says. He rubs at his chin, thinking. “There’s gotta be something else going on. If it’s even true. You said it was just a rumour, right? Maybe they’re making it up. Or exaggerating.”

“That’s not even the end of it,” Katara says. “One of the students said the waiter and another older man from that tea shop just opened up their own place right here in the Upper Ring. It’s supposed to be the best tea in the city.”

“Good for them,” Toph says. “I love an underdog.”

Katara’s face turns grave, and her voice follows. “We don’t know that they’re not Fire Nation. They could be after Aang.”

“We don’t know that they  _ are _ Fire Nation,” Aang offers. “Maybe Toph is right. Maybe they’re just a rags to riches kind of deal.”

Sokka spies a shift in Toph’s stance and knows what’s coming next.

“You don’t believe that,” Toph tells Aang.

He frowns at his feet. “No, I don’t.”

“Should we check it out then? In case? What do you think, Katara?” Sokka asks.

“Well, we can’t exactly march in and drop the Avatar right into their hands if they  _ are _ Fire Nation,” she reasons. “And even if they’re not…we should be cautious. If we go, we can’t bring Aang.”

“But I-!”

“It’s too risky, and you know it. We don’t know who these people are - it could be the Fire Lord himself for all we know. It’s safer if you don’t go.”

“We’re all known to the Fire Nation by now,” Toph says. “It’d be risky no matter who goes.”

“I could go,” Sokka says, before he’s really decided he even wants to. “I could wear a disguise. I’m not a bender, so I’m not really a threat, so I might not be on their list yet.”

“Sokka, that’s. . .” Katara trails off. “Are you sure?”

Sokka shrugs. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You get captured and killed by the Fire Nation,” Toph provides.

“They won’t execute me in a tea shop,” Sokka says around a sudden lump in his throat. “That’d be bad for business.”

* * *

It goes like this: Sokka is stuffed into the most convincing Earth Kingdom outfit they can put together, given a handful of gold and silver pieces, and escorted to the edge of the plaza the Jasmine Dragon calls home. 

It goes like this: Sokka marches his way up the steps and into the tea shop, sits at a corner table that gives him a view of the whole place, and hides his face behind a wide menu while he waits to be served.

It goes like this: the Jasmine Dragon looks like a tea shop, sounds like a tea shop, and moves like a tea shop. 

Sokka sits and watches government officials and fancily-dressed women and university students order and drink their tea. He watches busboys clean tables and wait staff take and deliver orders. He watches one waiter approach his table, head bowed over the notebook in his hand and face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat dipped low.

“What can I get you,” he says rather than asks, and there’s something about his voice that disrupts the hair along Sokka’s forearms.

“I’m not usually one for tea,” Sokka says. “What do you recommend?”

There’s the barest hint of a smile in his voice, though Sokka still can’t see his face, when he says, “My un- the owner likes the ginseng, but our jasmine tea is a personal favourite of mine.”

Sokka pretends to read the menu for a moment before folding it closed. “Surprise me.”

The waiter says then, and there’s a coyness to it that Sokka has to work not to fall for, “I’ll certainly try.”

He walks away then, and Sokka has to work again not to watch him go for the wrong reasons. 

Sokka is almost sure he’s never met that waiter in his life, but there’s something uncannily familiar about - well, all of him. His words set off a bell somewhere in Sokka’s mind, and he  _ knows _ that voice. He knows that voice, and that set of wide shoulders, and that quiet servitude that leaks into the way he walks. And yet, he doesn’t have a name or a face or a reason why the hair on his neck is still standing to attention. 

He watches the waiter move from table to table to customer to counter to table to the swishing door of the off-limits staff section of the shop, and never sees his face. There’s something deliberate about it, and Sokka can’t decide if it’s shyness or secrecy.

He turns his attention to the rest of the shop for a little while, tracking the movements of customers who seem to be regulars, despite the shop only being open a week at most if Katara’s rumour mill is to be believed. 

Sokka is eavesdropping on a conversation between two city guards when the waiter returns, face obscured as ever, with a dainty cup and saucer. Steam rises sweetly from the cup.

“What did I get?” Sokka asks, half so he knows what he’s getting into and half to get the waiter talking again. He  _ knows _ that voice.

“I spoke with the owner,” the waiter says, and there’s that sly tone again, “and we came to a compromise. If you can stomach his ginseng and ginger blend today, there’s a cup of jasmine with your name on it - tomorrow, on the house.”

“That’s nice of him,” Sokka says. He lifts the cup to his mouth and blows softly. The steam seems to topple as it disappears, a silent tree falling in an empty wood.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. The ginger’s not very forgiving today.”

“I’m always up for a challenge,” Sokka says. He is dangerously close to losing sight of his actual goal here in this tea shop, but there’s only so many times he can tell himself to snap out of it before the words start to lose meaning.

“I’ll bet,” the waiter says, and Sokka thinks he can hear him smirking. He glances up from the tea to check, but the waiter is gone, so fast Sokka doesn’t even see him walk away.

Sokka doesn’t know much about tea. If he were to guess, he’d probably say Aang is better suited to this portion of proceedings. Maybe Toph, with her high society background. Or Katara, even, she’s always had a much more sensitive palate than him, even growing up in the South Pole on sea prunes and not much else. What he’s getting at here is that he’s probably the least qualified person he knows, barring maybe Momo - but even then, who's to say? - to judge whether the cup of tea in front of him is good or bad. 

Maybe there’s a scale? Maybe it’s not so much a black and white, good or bad type of thing. Maybe tea is one of those things that comes in shades of grey - bad taste but good ingredients, good taste but poison, that kind of thing. Maybe it’s just a matter of preference, of finding what you like and sticking with it, anyone else’s opinion be damned.

He tastes the tea.

He wishes he hadn’t.

He holds it in his mouth, his tongue burning from the temperature and the ginger, desperate not to make a scene. He could spit and run, sure, but that would mean he’d be going back to the others with nothing but a weird feeling about one waiter. It would mean he couldn’t come back looking for more information without a different disguise, and they just don’t have the budget for that right now. It would mean he wouldn’t get his free jasmine tea tomorrow.

He swallows. He feels the heat of it all the way down his throat, liquid fire to the pit of his stomach. The aftertaste isn’t bad, the spice of the ginger now sticking in his throat in a way that’s more pleasant than emergent. 

He can feel eyes on him. He looks up toward the counter, but the waiter from before has his back turned to him, fussing with a tray of empty cups. Sokka thinks he can see a line of tension running up his spine, coiling like a snake. 

He leaves the tea to sit a while, lets a lazy breeze wafting through the shop cool it enough to be drinkable. And drink it he does, with his eyes trained on the waiter - still at the counter, unmoving - and it’s not so bad once it’s cooled off a bit. The heat of the ginger lingers, though, and he finds it’s not entirely unwelcome.

He drops two silver pieces into his empty cup and debates yelling a thank you at the waiter who won’t look at him. The sun is low in the sky as he walks out, unsure what exactly he’s learned that can be reported back to the others. What is there to say? The tea was hard to drink and he got a weird vibe from a waiter who probably just doesn’t trust the locals? His waiter wouldn’t look at him, but was happy enough to chat with him about his boss’s tea preferences?

He glances over his shoulder the whole way home. Despite his lack of evidence, Sokka can’t shake the feeling of being watched.

* * *

Katara tells him, “None of that is useful. You’re going back again.”

So Sokka goes again the next day.

* * *

He sits at the same table and is served by the same faceless waiter.

“Welcome back,” he says. His notepad is nowhere to be seen, but his head is bowed to the floor anyway.

Sokka eyes him warily. “Thanks,” he says. “I’m never one to turn down a freebie.”

“I have to admit,” the waiter says, quietly enough that Sokka leans across the table toward him to hear, “I wasn’t sure you would return. I thought we might’ve - ah - scared you off.”

“I don’t scare that easy.”

Sokka thinks he sees the waiter’s shoulders shift, thinks he hears him let out a puff of air, thinks he catches him showing some personality. He opens his mouth to make an accusation, but the waiter beats him to it.

“I’ll be back with your tea in a moment,” he says, and leaves. 

Sokka watches him go and come back a minute later with a cup of jasmine tea. He’s gone again as soon as Sokka takes the cup in his hand, through the swishing door at the back of the shop. He does not show his face.

Sokka sips his tea. It’s lighter than the ginseng and ginger, and goes down far easier. There’s something missing from it, though. A little more depth, maybe. More time to steep and develop the flavour.

He wonders absently why the waiter had bothered to come over at all, if he knew exactly what Sokka was here for already. He supposes it’s just good hospitality, but something about it nags at him. The way he spoke to Sokka, like he knew something Sokka didn’t - and the knowing of it was a thrill.

There’s a secret living in this tea shop, Sokka decides. He just hopes he has enough time left in Ba Sing Se to unearth it.

* * *

On the third day, Katara frowns at him. “If you’re sure -”

“I am sure,” he insists. “There’s  _ something _ there.”

* * *

“You’re not from around here, are you?” the waiter asks. He places Sokka’s cup of peppermint on the table in front of him. 

“Are you?” Sokka knows an opening when he sees one.

“I’m a -” The waiter stops himself, tries again. “I’m new in town.”

Always careful. Careful with the cups, careful with his words, careful not to reveal too much. Maybe that’s what got him in trouble at the last place.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says, and there’s a frown in his voice.

“I’m a student,” Sokka lies. “At the university.”

“Oh yeah? What are you studying?”

It feels like a trap, and Sokka has a sneaking suspicion he’s the one that set it. He scrambles for a second before remembering Professor Zei and the owl spirit.

“Anthropology,” he says. The nervous sweat trickling down his back dries up, just a little.

The waiter crosses his arms. It doesn’t strike Sokka as a particularly  _ trusting _ gesture.

“It’s the study of man,” he adds. 

“You got much experience in that field?” The waiter’s voice is pitched a little lower, and Sokka is so thrown off by it that he almost forgets to be thrown off by the words themselves.

He’s gone, through that swishing door again, before Sokka can grasp any thought that isn’t entirely inappropriate for what is still supposed to be a stake out.

* * *

On the fourth day, Katara says, “You’re going back? Again? I thought we decided it was a dead end?”

“There’s something up with that place, Katara, I know it,” Sokka promises.

“I think you just want to see that waiter guy again,” Toph says. The teeth of her grin are like a trap around the words. “I think you like him.”

“This has nothing to do with -” Sokka realises he doesn’t know the waiter’s name. He’s been going to the Jasmine Dragon for three days and having strange conversations with a man without a name or a face. 

“It’s not like that,” he says in the end, but that doesn’t feel like the whole truth. “The place is weird. I don’t know how to describe it, it’s like - there’s other people working there, but they don’t feel real. This guy is real, I think. He’s not just another waiter.”

“You’re not doing a great job convincing me you’re uncompromised,” Toph says.

“Whatever,” Sokka huffs. He tugs on the last robe of his Earth Kingdom disguise. “I’m going. I’ll be back before dark.”

* * *

Sokka’s usual table is taken up by two young men - possibly actual students at the university - when he arrives. Their shoulders are pressed together where the corner of the table joins together, heads close enough to knock as they talk quietly. One says something into the other’s ear, and the private smile that spreads across his lips leaves Sokka feeling like an intruder just watching them from the other side of the shop floor.

He can’t tear his eyes away, though, even as their gentle and discreet laughter floats over to him. His ears ring at the sound of it.

“A change of scenery is always good,” comes a familiar voice on his left. “It keeps the mind fresh and alert.”

Sokka jumps at the sound of his voice. 

“Usually,” the waiter adds. There’s mirth in his words, and Sokka finds he doesn’t take offense at the obviously mocking tone. Something in him wants to play along, to hold this stranger’s attention as long as he can.

Sokka looks at him, and sees his face for the first time. 

His head is turned, so Sokka only sees one side, but what a side it is. His skin is clear and his jaw casts spectacular shadows along his neck as he speaks. Sokka realises, looking at him, that he’s not the man he expected but a boy, barely older than Sokka himself. His eyes, as far as Sokka can tell, are the colour of pure golden sun, and shine against the dark circles beneath them.

Someone at the door, an old man Sokka vaguely recognises from the last three days, says to the waiter in a way that bursts with familiarity and fondness, “How are you, Lee? How’s Mushi? Not working himself too hard, I hope.”

His waiter smiles, a subtle and restrained thing, and Sokka finds himself once again unable to look away.

“You know how he is,” the waiter -  _ Lee, _ Sokka thinks - says, and turns back to Sokka. His head is bowed again, his face obscured once more. 

Lee taps his notepad with the small pencil in his other hand. “Well?”

Sokka looks at him, overwhelmed and dumb. “Well, what?”

“What can I get you?” 

“Oh!” Sokka huffs. “Obviously. Uh, can I, um -”

“Do you need a minute? I can come back when you’re ready.”

“No! No,” Sokka corrects himself. “I just - you know what, surprise me. I trust your judgement.”

Lee makes a little  _ hmph _ sound, like there’s something funny in what he’s just heard. “As you wish.”

When he’s gone, out the mystery door Sokka now guesses is probably just the way to the kitchen, Sokka works on learning how to breathe again. He feels restless, like his blood is running twice as fast as it should. 

This is the thing: Sokka likes Lee well enough, as much as any companion of the Avatar on a several days long stake out can like an employee of the establishment being staked out. For a little while he’d suspected the waiter gig to be a cover for something more nefarious. Once, and only because Toph had put the idea in his head that first day he came back with no real news, he had entertained the notion that the Jasmine Dragon might be the work of the Fire Lord - a way to take Ba Sing Se from the inside - but that theory never really rang true. 

This is the thing: maybe Sokka wants to trust this place. Wants to trust  _ Lee. _ Lee hiding his face was what held him back and made him suspicious in the first place, but now -  _ now _ it’s different. Now he’s seen his face and heard mischief in his words and a dare in his voice.

This is the thing: when Lee comes back with a cup of rooibos tea, Sokka wants him to stay.

* * *

On the fifth day, they find Appa and almost die at the hands of the Dai Li. Sokka doesn’t go to the Jasmine Dragon.

On the sixth day, Sokka doesn’t go to the Jasmine Dragon. He goes to his father instead, and tries not to feel bad about not saying goodbye to the pretty boy he barely knows.

On the seventh day, everything goes to hell, and keeps going to hell long past sunset.


	2. Chapter 2

On the day of the eclipse, everything happens so fast. 

Their window of opportunity was so small to begin with, it’s a miracle they even survive it. Not everyone makes it out, though, and Sokka spends every second of their last-ditch flight to freedom dreading the day he finds out his people were executed instead of imprisoned.

On the day of the eclipse, everything happens so fast - until it doesn’t. 

The sun sets and rises, that doesn’t change, but every minute that passes without a plan or an idea or any information on the rest of their team feels like a century. When they lose Appa and have to walk - well, the blisters on Sokka’s feet are just the icing on the cake. They walk for hours, and Sokka feels every one of them.

With everything that’s happened - Azula’s coup, Aang nearly dying, bloodbending, the invasion - the days of Ba Sing Se and the enigma of Long Feng and Lake Laogai feel like a lifetime ago. Eventually, Sokka stops thinking about their time in Ba Sing Se, and doesn’t find it that hard to do. Eventually, he forgets. There are more pressing matters that need his attention.

The clock is ticking on Sozin’s comet, and Aang needs a Firebender.

* * *

It goes like this: the Western Air Temple is too big and too lonely to have the same argument over and over, but they have it anyway, because the air feels too heavy when it’s empty. There are no Firebenders, but they need one.

It goes like this: there is a Firebender. He says, “Hello, Zuko here,” and surrenders himself as a prisoner when they won’t accept him as an ally. He tells them secrets they don’t ask for, and in the midst of the alarm bells in Sokka’s head, there is something small that wants to offer trust. 

It goes like this: Zuko saves their lives, and Aang has a Firebender.

* * *

Sokka shows Zuko to his room. He doesn’t comment on the fact that it’s the only private room to be occupied by their group. 

Zuko doesn’t say anything while they walk, and Sokka thinks he understands. He’s not the one Zuko needs to win over - he knows Katara is lying in wait somewhere in the temple, rolling over in her mind how exactly she’s going to keep him in line - and it’s not as if they have any common interests beyond saving the world.

“This one’ll do,” Sokka says, because he can’t bear the quiet. He walks in with Zuko, just a couple of paces, and feels awkwardness start to boil in his gut.

“Home sweet home, I guess,” Sokka says. “You know. For now.”

Zuko moves farther into the room, lays down his things. Looking at his back, something nags at Sokka. There’s something about the image that sticks to the tip of his tongue and won’t let go. 

“I’ll let you, um, unpack. Lunch should be soon,” he says, to fill the air if nothing else. 

Zuko turns, just enough to look at him while we babbles. The angle of his face makes the nagging in Sokka’s mind more persistent. The blank space where there should be an answer overwhelms him, just for a second.

“Uh,” Sokka says. “Welcome aboard?”

Zuko smiles at him. It’s small, but it’s there, and the shiver that runs down Sokka’s spine isn’t from dread. For the first time in weeks, he thinks about the boy from the tea shop with a knack for surprises.

* * *

Zuko and Aang leave to find fire to bend. Sokka hunts.

The land surrounding the temple is lush and green and oppressively quiet. He sets traps with rope and wire, climbs trees and hills for better views, and tries not to think about his best friend alone on a trip with the Fire Lord’s son.

He follows a stream from its source until it becomes wider and starts to lead him back to the temple. There are no fish, and he’s known this the whole time, but he holds his spear at the ready anyway. The water is relaxed and cool, only quickening its pace when the terrain shifts into something steeper than the meandering slope Sokka finds himself getting used to. He slips a couple of times in the wet earth by the river, swears each time, and tries not to think about Zuko and Aang and what might well be a plot to damn them all.

The sun is high and searing above him. The river looks to be the source of the temple’s water supply, so he doubles back when he gets too close to being home already. He checks over his traps, making his way slowly and without disturbing too much of the land around him, and tries not to think about Zuko and how badly he wants to believe him.

When the sun starts to sink and he doesn’t have the energy to walk and not-think at the same time, he goes back to his friends. He wanders through the halls and corridors and stairwells that make up the temple, ignoring the icy feeling in his stomach as he approaches Toph and Katara sitting among the rubble left by Combustion Man, right where he left them earlier. He’s empty handed, but that’s not really a surprise to anyone. 

He sits in the dust beside Toph, and waits for Katara to ask the question he can already see plainly on her face.

“Well?” she says. “What do you think?”

He doesn’t need to ask what she means. There’s only one thing to talk about.

“I don’t know,” Sokka says.

“Yes, you do,” Toph says. “I don’t need to feel your heartbeat to know that.”

He glares at her, then looks back at Katara. Her expression isn’t the disapproving, betrayed one he expects to see. Instead, she is pleading and open, and Sokka understands that she’s just trying to figure out how to navigate this situation. 

“Aang trusts him,” he says, but he knows that’s not really enough of an answer. “I want to trust him, too. I want to try.”

“Aren’t you,” Katara starts, and trails off, unsure what she’s trying to say, “afraid?”

“No.” The word escapes before Sokka has even thought about it. He doesn’t need Toph to tell him it’s the truth.

Katara hums. It’s an odd little sound, out of place given what Sokka knows about her feelings on the situation. He looks down at his hands, and the angle gives him a view of the sole of one of Toph’s feet.

He taps her knee. “What are you thinking?”

Toph doesn’t say anything. Then, “He’s not a liar.”

The sky is a glorious burnt orange when Appa returns, shifting a cloud of debris beneath him. Aang is alive and sprightly as ever and Zuko is in the saddle behind him, his earlier sullen expression replaced by something Sokka can’t read but is decidedly less morose.

Katara lets out a tight breath beside him as soon as Aang’s feet are back on the ground. Aang rushes to greet them and chatter about the Sun Warriors and dragons and fire. Zuko hangs back, away from the group gathered around Aang to hear all about the trip, and Sokka wishes he could ignore him. He wishes he could pretend not to see Zuko, their most persistent adversary since the very start, too sheepish to join a discussion about his own day. He wishes he could look at Zuko and fear him again, instead of whatever it is he feels for him now - pity, apprehension, kinship? - that makes him do what he does next.

Aang stops his prattle to take a breath, and Sokka calls out, “Hey, Zuko, is it true you learned a new dance?”

Zuko looks at him. His eyes are sharp and the line of his mouth is harsh, but his shoulders relax a little and he takes a couple of steps toward them. “It’s not a  _ dance - _ ”

“We could show you!” Aang bounces over to Zuko and drags him into a wider open space. The trust Aang has in him is flooring, Sokka thinks, but what’s more surprising is that Zuko lets himself be pulled.

As Aang and Zuko shuffle into position, their audience clusters together on the floor. Sokka drops down next to Toph and doesn’t really intend to watch that closely, but once they start to move, he can’t look away.

The movements are clean and purposeful, with a sort of controlled grace Sokka has never seen in Firebending before. The steps look clumsy and too big coming from Aang’s small body, but they fit Zuko just right. The roll of muscle, the flash of skin and fire with each stretch of his limbs, the cool concentration on his face - for a moment, Sokka forgets he doesn’t trust him.

* * *

Zuko is hard to get to know, but Sokka is nothing if not persistent.

There’s a sort of unspoken rule among team Avatar that says, for now at least, someone has to be with Zuko at all times.  _ Just in case _ is implied, but the more time Sokka spends as Zuko’s keeper, the more he questions what exactly it is they’re afraid of. Katara doesn’t trust him yet, not all the way, Aang trusts him too much, and Toph doesn’t like to take instructions, so more often than not the duty of keeping watch over the crown prince of the Fire Nation falls to Sokka. After a couple of days, he finds he doesn’t mind.

Zuko doesn’t talk much at first, which makes things -  _ difficult _ to say the least. They’re away from the temple, taking a break from their so far unsuccessful hunting at the spot that used to be Zuko’s old campsite, when Sokka brings it up.

“You’re not much of a talker,” he says. He sits in the dirt beside a scorched pile of twigs he thinks must have been a fire at one point, leaning against a log that Zuko, beside him, uses as a bench.

Zuko looks at him, eyebrow raised, and takes the waterskin offered to him. “We’re hunting. That’s not usually the ideal time for a heart to heart.”

“You’re looking for a heart to heart?” Sokka says, and meets his eye. “I just wanted to know if you knew what berries were safe to eat, but if you have something you want to get off your chest -”

“No.” He says it too fast, and by the wince that takes over his features, Sokka can tell they both know it.

Sokka offers him the most charming smile he has. “You can tell me, I’m a good listener.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Zuko’s mouth has a wry curl to it, and something shifts in Sokka at the sight of it.

“I’m serious, ask anyone! I’m - wait, was that a joke?”

Zuko takes a swig from the waterskin, but keeps looking at him. There’s the barest hint of  _ something _ in his eye that makes the hair on the back of Sokka’s neck stand to attention.

They don’t talk the rest of the time they’re out, but Sokka doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence. At some point, around about when Zuko flings an arm out in front of Sokka to stop him stepping in one of his own traps, the silence goes from awkward to companionable. Sokka would call it comfortable, if it weren’t for the itch under his skin every time Zuko looks at him.

* * *

They settle into a routine - or, as much of a routine as is possible when the end of the world is beckoning.

The routine is this: Sokka watches Aang’s Firebending lessons, spends the afternoon hunting or sparring, and helps Katara feed more mouths than they’ve ever had to before at dinnertime.

The routine is this: Sokka tries not to only watch Zuko, tries not to get distracted by the closeness of Zuko’s body, and tries to remember how to hold a knife when Zuko offers to help.

The routine is this: Sokka fails.

* * *

Zuko moves out of his room.

Sokka watches him - he’s given up on trying not to - as he tries to be discreet about laying his bedroll down by the fire in their common area. He realises, when Zuko disappears into the bowels of the temple and returns again with the rest of his things, that he’s setting his space up beside Sokka’s.

It makes sense. Sokka sleeps a little bit apart from the group so there’s plenty of space around his sleeping bag, he’s furthest away from Aang’s snoring, and he’s in just the right spot that the debris from the Combustion Man incident blocks the glare of the sun first thing in the morning. 

Rationalising the decision doesn’t stop the rush of blood to his cheeks when Zuko catches him looking and offers him a self-conscious little smile from across the courtyard.

Katara snaps at him. "Sokka, are you listening to me?"

"What? Yes," he says, but doesn't look at her right away. He spies a teapot among Zuko's belongings, and something in his mind slots into place.

“Then what did I say?”

“You said, um.” He still can’t look at her, his gaze stuck to the teapot. There are bells in his head now, a hundred ringing at once and Sokka can name each one. Or, thinks he can, at least. He barely registers the impatient  _ tap tap tap _ of Katara’s foot.

“Sokka, are you -” Katara’s hair whips across his face as she turns her head to follow his line of sight. “Oh, Zuko’s stuff is here now. I guess that -  _ oh. _ ”

She steps in front of him, breaking his focus on the teapot. He looks at her, finally, and she says in a hushed tone, “Is that what this is? Is Zuko even - are  _ you _ \- I mean, do you -”

“No,” Sokka says, too quickly. “I don’t know. Maybe. I have to - there’s still a couple of things I need to figure out before I know. There’s a lot of variables to juggle, and I don’t even have all the information, so it’s - wait, what are you talking about?”

Katara gawks at him. “What are  _ you _ talking about?”

“I’m talking about Zuko being the guy from the tea shop in Ba Sing Se, what are  _ you _ talking about?”

Her eyes go wide and her mouth all but disappears. “Oh, um. The same thing. Yeah.”

“But how would you - I’ve never even thought about this before. How would you come to the -”

“Oh, I have my ways, Sokka,” Katara says. There’s something about the forced levity of her tone that doesn’t sit quite right with him.

“Okay,” Sokka says. He narrows his eyes at her, and she flinches, just a little, under the scrutiny. “So what were you -”

“Are you going to talk to him?” Katara asks. It bursts out of her, uncontrolled and unbidden. “Zuko, I mean. About - um, what you’ve been thinking. About him.”

Sokka looks over her shoulder at the patch of the courtyard Zuko has claimed for himself - his sleeping bag, the teapot, a couple of crumpled up pieces of paper, the tentative space between his things and Sokka’s - and catches sight of Zuko himself, cross-legged by the fire and encouraging Aang to bend it higher. Zuko meets his eye and his smile broadens; it seems an involuntary thing to Sokka, and the rush of colour to Zuko’s face all but confirms it. 

Sokka feels his own expression soften, and feels suddenly full of hot air. His thoughts become cloudy and muddled for a moment before he snaps his eyes back to Katara and tries to fix himself.

She looks at him, and her wide eyes are no longer concerned. She says, quiet like a confession, “I think you should talk to him.”

“About the -”

“No, Sokka,” she says. “The other thing.”

He looks past her at Zuko, with his eyes trained on Aang’s stance and his mouth a stubborn straight line, and feels that same rush all over again. He looks back at Katara and says, “Yeah. Okay.”

* * *

Sokka swings his legs over the ledge of the courtyard, watching his toes disappear into the inky black below. He knows there’s nothing but empty air out in the dark on this side of the temple, but there’s something tangible about this blanket void, like if he were to take a leap he could sink down and swim in it. 

His friends are asleep behind him, as they should be. Sokka is wide awake.

He doesn’t want to be, but there’s not much to be done about it. He can’t sleep, not when he knows what he thinks he knows, not when Zuko is so near to him. So he sits here, on the edge of the night, and wonders how it came to be that the heir to the Fire Nation throne and the ache for his touch are what keeps him up at night.

The stars don’t look real. They look painted on, an imagining of what must exist in the sky when the sun isn’t around. He can’t see the moon from here, but that’s probably just as well. He doesn’t need the guilt of Yue’s presence right now, as much as he curses himself for thinking that way.

There’s sound behind him. Shifting in a sleeping bag, the soft  _ pad pad _ of bare feet on cobblestone, the water of the fountain being disturbed, those same footsteps getting louder as they come nearer. Sokka doesn’t turn, afraid that the thrill he feels at knowing exactly who the sounds belong to will show on his face and expose him before he has the chance to reveal himself on purpose.

Zuko’s legs swing beside his, until their knees knock together and they both still. Sokka’s skin sings at the point of contact.

“Can’t sleep?” Sokka asks. He doesn’t look at him.

“I tried,” Zuko says. “Then I saw you were up.”

“And?”

Zuko bumps his shoulder against Sokka’s. “And I didn’t want to anymore.”

Sokka’s heart races, like thunder in his chest, and it’s then that he notices what Zuko has in his hands. The dull white of the pot glows orange where it touches Zuko’s skin, and steam pipes lazily from the spout. Sokka looks at him, for the first time since sitting down, and there’s a cautious sort of optimism in his smile that has Sokka forcing his eyes up to Zuko’s, rather than let them get caught on his mouth too long.

“Tea?” Zuko asks, even though they both know the answer. He pulls two cups from his other side and sets them down in the sliver of space between their thighs. He pours, and Sokka can’t stop looking at him.

“What kind is it?” Sokka’s mouth suddenly tastes of dust.

Zuko is still pouring when he says, “My favourite.”

Sokka takes his cup but doesn’t drink. He looks at Zuko, watches him stare out into the black. He shifts his leg, just barely, to seal the gap between them. Zuko doesn’t move away.

“When we were in Ba Sing Se,” Sokka says, “Katara heard that there were Firebenders in the city, working at this tea shop.”

Zuko says nothing. He takes a sip from his cup, and Sokka lets himself watch the movement of his throat as he swallows.

“So I went to check it out,” he continues, “and there was this one guy there who was kind of mysterious. He wouldn’t show his face, he never told me his name, he never gave a straight answer - I thought,  _ that’s my guy. _ ”

Zuko stiffens beside him, but still doesn’t say anything.

“But I couldn’t know for sure, so I kept going back. And he’d serve me every time, always something different, something I didn’t expect. He was funny, too. I think you’d like him.”

Zuko huffs a little laugh.

“It got to the point where I wasn’t going because I was suspicious anymore, I just wanted to talk to this weird, fascinating guy. I wanted to be in his head as much as he was in mine. I guess I was kind of into him. As much as I could be into a guy whose face I’d never seen.”

Sokka’s cup is no longer too hot to hold. He doesn’t think it would burn him now, if he brought it to his lips.

“But then I saw him. He was talking to someone across the shop, and I saw the side of his face. And I couldn’t believe someone who looked like that would go out of his way to talk to me everyday.”

Sokka drinks from his cup at the same instant Zuko turns to look at him. Jasmine flows across his tongue, and Sokka feels electric.

“You were in Ba Sing Se,” Sokka says. He sets his cup down beside him. “You wouldn’t know anything about any of that, would you?”

Zuko doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, as Sokka turns his head to look at him again and their eyes meet anew, he reaches up to touch his fingertips to Sokka’s face. Sokka melts into it and wraps his hand around Zuko’s wrist, holding him there.

“I have it on pretty good authority,” Zuko says, and his voice doesn’t waver, “that he feels the same way.”

Zuko’s hand shifts to cup Sokka’s jaw. He runs his thumb across Sokka’s bottom lip, and Sokka’s breath catches, and he can’t go on like this any longer. He pushes into the scant inch of space between them and slots their mouths together. 

Sokka swipes his thumb across the back of Zuko’s hand and feels him shiver against him. Zuko’s lips part, just barely, and Sokka presses in further. Zuko’s mouth is hot, and Sokka can’t tell if that’s from the tea or a symptom of the fire that lives under his skin - but he intends to find out.

He pulls back a moment to breathe, but Zuko chases him, and there’s a hunger in it that there wasn’t before. 

Sokka is wide awake. The thrum of Zuko’s pulse where Sokka holds his wrist tells him he’s not the only one.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://goldrushzukka.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/carlyraejervis?s=09/)


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